


i am a thousand winds that blow

by Zannolin



Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I am pointedly looking away from canon right now, I just want happy crimebois is that SO MUCH to ask, Resurrection, fixit, no beta we die like crimebois fans just did, there are a lotta charas in here but i gave up tagging them rip, they are mostly small anyways, this fic has it all: therapuffy and pogtopia and fixit and comfort wow, this goes out to my readers who have suffered too much hurt no comfort from me, why is there no tag for foolish what is his tag wtf
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-06
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-12 11:34:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29883951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zannolin/pseuds/Zannolin
Summary: They bring him back on a Tuesday, and Tommy doesn’t know if that’s a good thing or not. For now, it simplyis.Wilbur died on a Monday, and today, almost four months later, he comes back.or,I guess space and time takes violent things, angry things, and makes them kind.
Relationships: Wilbur Soot & TommyInnit
Comments: 29
Kudos: 281





	i am a thousand winds that blow

**Author's Note:**

> I continue my terrifyingly consistent ao3 uploads at the cost of my art oops. I haven't drawn in over a month. 
> 
> anyways, come to me all ye who are weary of canon's hurt no comfort and I shall give ye hurt WITH comfort, and crimebois fixits, because I am in utter denial about canon right now so you can have this. got a lot of inspiration from a fic comment I wrote, of all things. sorry if the jumping around is weirder than normal, I was going less for "linear story" and more for "important bits" lol.
> 
> this fic is literally just so self-indulgent, written Specifically For Me because I said no FUCK c!dream who needs him, we have foolish and I wanna write a fixit. if you enjoy it, that's a bonus!
> 
> griff, I've finally written a fic you can read. are you proud of me?

Tommy needn’t tell you the story of Wilbur’s death to tell you the tale of his resurrection.

Here is the thing about stories: they never work the way you expect them to.

People say it’s always best to start at the beginning, but is that ever where the story _starts?_

(If Tommy were to tell you about his brother from a conventional _beginning,_ inhale through the nose, exhale through the mouth, open your lips and speak such clichéd words as _once upon a time_ —

If Tommy were to do that, he would have to begin far, far further back than November 16th, or the Election, or even before that, before independence and the war and the Declaration.

Perhaps he would have to begin with a wandering musician and the scrappy thief who tried to rob him of his food.

Perhaps it would start with a cottage in the woods, a man who liked to travel and a boy who grew too lonely to wait for him to come home.)

All stories start at the important bits, and they wind around, meandering ever onwards to include everything else in some way or another, but no story ever really has a typical beginning or an endpoint.

They are simply being told, or they are not.

It all depends on the storyteller.

So Tommy, to tell you of Wilbur’s return, does not need to speak of his departure, of the sword that cut through flesh and scraped against bone, the sword it seemed like Tommy himself could feel; of the way he screamed so loud his voice cracked and splintered and left him hoarse for a week afterwards.

We all know that tragedy well enough.

This story is simple and far more sweet than it is bitter, and it begins not on the sixteenth of a month, not on a meaningful day when the echoes of past wrongs resound stronger against crater walls and vibrate in the bones of those who stood in the aftermath of explosions, lost and bereft.

It begins on a day like any other, utterly insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

It begins on a Tuesday.

* * *

Somehow, he starts spending time with Puffy.

After he gets his discs back, after Dream is in prison, after it seems like nearly everything is said and done, Tommy doesn’t know what to do anymore. He’s been fighting in wars for so long he doesn’t know what it’s like to stop, rest, _breathe._

He’s not even sure he knows what it’s like to have _friends_ anymore, outside of Tubbo.

(The worst thing about the war, he thinks, wasn’t the war itself. It was all the breaks in between when he managed to fool himself into thinking anyone could possibly be his friend.)

But somehow, some way, Puffy tracks him down, finds him mindlessly tending his carrot patch, and, hands on hips, asks him to come have tea with her. Her tone is light but the furrow between her brows speaks volumes about her concern, and that…makes Tommy feel bad. She shouldn’t have to worry about him. No one should. He can take care of himself.

He ends up agreeing, and one afternoon visit to Puffy’s mushroom house becomes two, and then three, and then it’s a weekly occurrence for Tommy to plop down at her kitchen table and cradle a steaming mug of tea between his palms.

They talk about a lot of things, him and Puffy. He calls her _Captain Pussy_ with a shit-eating grin, and she swats him on the back of the head with an answering sparkle in her eye. Tommy rambles about his plans for the hotel, and she nods along.

(It’s not like the way everyone else hems and haws and nods when Tommy talks. Puffy _listens,_ and that means more to Tommy than he wishes to admit.)

It’s on a Tuesday afternoon when Tommy slips up and says more than he means to, something he’s never said to anyone else on the server, barring a whisper to Tubbo when they laid curled on their sides on a single bed in Tommy’s dirt shack of a home, when the smoke and dust that was all that remained of L’manberg still clung to them like a second skin, when it was only Tommy’s exhaustion and a terrible aching _emptiness_ and the cover of the darkness all combined that loosened his lips.

“I miss Wilbur,” he says, staring down into the dregs of the tea Puffy had handed him. It’s some kind of berry flavor, and though he knows the sight of blood well enough to distinguish it from the wine-colored liquid in his mug, the sight still makes something in him shudder.

He blinks, surprised. He hadn’t meant to say that. Why did he say it?

Puffy, for her part, doesn’t seem surprised.

“From what I know,” she says carefully, “he seemed very important to you.”

“He was like my brother,” Tommy says, numb. “Or…or some shit like that, I guess. He was always looking out for me.”

Puffy bites her lip and does not say the words that hang heavy between them.

_He wasn’t looking out for you, not at the end._

Everyone knows it. Most people say it.

“He didn’t get a grave,” Tommy rambles on, fingers tapping nervously at the sides of his mug, pressing out a silent melody against the embossed flowers. “That’s…I mean. He was bad. He was…fuckin’ terrible” — here, a trembling laugh — “but _Schlatt_ got a funeral, you know?”

There’s silence as that thought processes, and then:

“It’s probably better this way,” Tommy mumbles. “Seeing how much of a shitshow the funeral was. He wasn’t even _buried_ when his grave got robbed. I don’t…I don’t think I would have wanted that for Wilbur. Even after…after everything. That’d be pretty shitty.”

“Yes,” Puffy says softly. “I suppose it would.”

They don’t say much after that, but the seeds of a thought have been planted. It doesn’t take much for them to sprout.

* * *

( _Hello,_ says Wilbur, light and cheerful, and Tommy can _hear_ the grin in his voice; _did you miss me?_

 _Yes,_ Tommy thinks. _Yes, more than anything._ )

* * *

Standing atop his hotel — _his_ hotel! — Tommy stares across the SMP lands, eyes pointedly avoiding the crater that remains where L’manberg once stood, and feels something settle in his chest.

He’s not quite right yet, but he’s getting there.

From his vantage point, Tommy can see the looming presence of Pandora’s Box, and as much as he doesn’t want to think about who’s trapped inside, languishing in an uncomfortably warm obsidian box, the thought still tugs at him.

 _I want closure,_ Tommy whispers, and he knows this isn’t the way to get it.

He goes to visit Dream anyway.

(He makes it all the way to the lava wall, items stored neatly in locker one, respawn points set time and again, inventory emptied, before realizing this isn’t what he wants.

 _Tommy,_ says Sam, gently, _are you sure you want to see him?_

And Tommy?

Tommy stands frozen for a moment before scrambling back from the lava ungracefully, feeling like a newborn colt on wobbly legs.

 _No,_ he says. _No, I’ve changed my mind. I don’t — I don’t want to see him._

Tommy can’t see it, but there is a gleam of pride in Sam’s eyes behind his mask.

 _Sam,_ says Tommy, tiredly. _Sam, I want to go home._

There is nothing for him here.)

* * *

(Here is something Tommy knows: Wilbur left the podium with a half-smile on his lips and a lightness in his step, and he said _I’ll be back_ as easy as breathing, like it was the only truth in the world that mattered. Maybe if he had been close enough, Tommy could have seen the sadness behind Wilbur’s eyes, the tired _resolve._

Here is something Tommy does not know: Wilbur Soot died with a smile on his face.)

* * *

It ends up Puffy who he tells first, when the seeds have sprouted and unfurled, rising up in the garden of his mind to bloom so brightly he cannot ignore them no matter how hard he tries. Tommy has an _idea,_ and he cannot stop thinking about it.

“I think I want to bring Wilbur back,” is the first thing he says to Puffy when she opens her door one afternoon. She’s the first he tells, which doesn’t make much sense — why didn’t he go to Tubbo or Fundy or even Phil?

(But no, it _does_ make sense, it makes perfect sense, because Puffy has always _listened._ Puffy has always cared. Puffy is easy to talk to, and even now she looks at Tommy with calm understanding, and says, _how?_ )

He explains his thoughts as she makes tea, plonks the steaming mug in front of him, and sits across from him at the table.

“I don’t think Dream’s revival book is real,” he rambles, pulling at his hair, and, “why would he use it to help me, anyway? He’s in prison, and I can’t — I can’t let him out. And — and there’s Foolish, isn’t there? He’s a fuckin’ _god,_ or something, I can’t believe we never thought to ask him. I mean, he might be a bitch and say _no_ when I ask him for help, but it’s worth a shot, innit? It’s…”

He takes a shuddering breath, the hand threaded through the mug’s handle clenching it so tightly his knuckles turn white.

“It’s better than Dream, right?”

Puffy places a hand on Tommy’s wrist, coaxing his fingers out from where they are knotting his hair.

“Right,” she says, and there’s a sadness in her tone that reminds Tommy that Dream _was_ something to her, before…before it all went bad.

( _Before you_ ruined _things, like you always do,_ a voice hisses in the back of his head, and Tommy bites down on a sob. He feels like he’s unravelling, like this train of thought has taken all his fraying threads and _tugged_ until he begins to come apart at the seams, collapsing in on himself. He doesn’t know what to _do._ )

“Puffy,” he whispers, pleading. “Puffy, do I do it? Should I try?”

And Puffy?

She looks at him, calm and steady, like an anchor in this storm-tossed sea, and grasps his hand.

“What do you _want,_ Tommy?” she asks.

Tommy blinks. “What?”

“Do you want Wilbur back?”

Puffy’s tone is patient, but her words hit Tommy with all the force of a physical blow. Does he _want_ Wilbur back? After everything?

(How long has it been since he’s thought about what he wants, _really_ wants?)

His dumbfounded silence stretches on long enough that his tea goes cold, and finally Puffy squeezes his hand.

“I can’t tell you what you should do, Tommy. But I hope that you do what’s best for you.”

( _I want you to do whatever your heart says you should do,_ echo words from a sticky summer night, before an arrow that missed and an arrow that struck home and two discs changed hands just one of many, many times.)

“Do what’s best for you,” Puffy repeats. “Do what you want.”

Then, softer, “You’re allowed to _want,_ Tommy.”

She’s silent after that, but even Puffy’s silence speaks volumes.

Tommy departs that day unsteady but determined.

* * *

(It is both a blessing and a curse that Wilbur knows exactly how Tommy feels. Not feels as in his emotions and shit; _feels_ as in the eternal ache winding through his torso, trailing up and down like pain is using his ribs as piano keys, sometimes smooth and subtle, sometimes staccato-sharp and quick.

 _Feels_ as in the spasms in his hand and wrist, twitching with the memory of Techno stomping on it to loosen his grasp on his sword.

 _Feels_ as in the way the puckered burn scars across his arms and torso like to _twinge,_ leaving him struggling to contain a wince.

Wilbur understands, because his own hands shake terribly. Because some days he struggles to draw a breath without pain. Because a multitude of scars mark his body, just like Tommy’s.

Bringing him back did not change that. And scars are only the tip of the iceberg.

Tommy hates it, _hates_ that Wilbur knows, because once again, _Wilbur_ is the person to know him better than anyone else, the person to see all the tics and flinches and tells, the only one who ever seems to notice all the ways Tommy _hurts._

But some part of him loves it, too, because how long has it been since Wilbur saw Tommy’s pain and _cared?_

When it gets bad, or when the nightmares creep out of the dark spaces in their minds, whispering of buttons and TNT and sons who tear down their father's legacy and _put your things in the hole, Tommy_ and _white flags! Outside your base tomorrow, at dawn!_ and the multitude of other things they should not have been through, Wilbur lets Tommy curl up beside him in bed, runs his fingers through Tommy’s hair, and both of them breathe a little easier.)

* * *

"Do you have any more hearts of the sea?” Tommy asks, barging into Eret’s castle, because Sam Nook is hungry _again_ and Tommy just wants his hotel to get upgraded, dammit, but it would take far too long to go find all the hearts himself, even with his trident, and he’s _impatient,_ sue him.

Eret doesn’t seem bothered by the interruption; she sets down the book they were reading and rises from their chair gracefully.

“Sam Nook again?” he asks knowingly, and Tommy nods, tapping his foot.

He feels all jumpy and shit, around Eret. He’s not sure he’s fully forgiven them for her betrayal during the revolution (scars run deep; consequences remain even in the wake of an apology, of striving for redemption) but this is a different kind of nervousness. It’s something itching under his skin, burning like a hot coal in the back of his mouth, words waiting to claw their way out. Tommy opens his jaw and releases them without thinking.

“What do you think about Wilbur?” he asks in a rush. “About…about him coming back.”

Eret pauses from where he’s stooped to retrieve the hearts from her enderchest, looking thoughtful. They aren’t wearing their shades today, and Tommy finds he isn’t actually unnerved by Eret’s milky white eyes at all.

“Well,” Eret says carefully, “you remember I helped when Phil tried to resurrect him, after…”

After _Phil_ (and Techno, and Dream) blew L’manberg to hell and back?

( _Like father, like son,_ Tommy supposes. _The apple sure didn’t fall far from the fuckin’ tree, did it?_ )

Tommy nods.

“I think,” Eret says, and then she stops and thinks, straightening up to their full height, rolling the hearts of the sea between both palms.

There is a long, _long_ moment of silence, and Tommy has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from nagging.

“I think,” he begins again, softer, “I think Wilbur used to be a great man.”

(Tommy holds the words _used to be_ in his mouth, rolling them over his tongue. They taste bitter behind his teeth.)

“He was something of a role model for me, you could say,” Eret continues, and laughs softly. “Which is ironic, I suppose. But no one could quite rally people to a cause like our Wilbur, could they?”

There’s a faraway look in his eyes.

“He gave people hope, I think. At least, in the beginning. Even when everything seemed like it was falling apart around you, like you could never win. Somehow, he always made it seem like we could win.”

(Tommy wonders if Eret means the revolution or the rebellion. He wonders if it matters, either way, seeing as they technically lost both, in the end.)

“Yeah,” Tommy says quietly, and coughs into his fist.

Eret presses the hearts into Tommy’s hands, a small smile gracing her lips.

“Wilbur made me want to be better.” He says the words like a prayer, almost. “So I think I would like it if he got a chance to be better himself.”

Tommy closes his fingers over the hearts of the sea and nods shakily.

“Thank you,” he whispers, and means it. He turns to go, but stops when Eret calls after him.

“Tommy.”

Tommy spins to face him, questioning.

“You remind me of him, you know.”

He laughs nervously. “That’s not…that’s not exactly the best thing, Eret, now is it?”

Eret smiles, shakes their head. “You’re like Wilbur in all the best ways, Tommy. In all the ways that _count._ ”

Tommy doesn’t stop thinking about that for a long, long time.

* * *

(Wilbur Soot died on a Monday, and Tommy finds that true to form, because Mondays fuckin’ suck.

They bring him back on a Tuesday, and Tommy doesn’t know if that’s a good thing or not. For now, it simply _is._ Wilbur died on a Monday, and today, almost four months later, he comes back.

Tommy _is,_ and Wilbur _was_ and _will be,_ and there’s something to be said for the beauty of simply _being._ )

* * *

He heads north under the guise of returning the Axe of Peace to Techno — clearly, it’s more important to Techno than he realized, if Dream had a space for it in his creepy, fucked-up vault inside the mountain — but really, Tommy _needs_ to talk to him, and to Phil.

The thought of seeing them is terrifying, really. Their absence from the send-off on the Prime path months ago and from the crowd that came to save Tommy and Tubbo might have gone unnoticed by others, but to Tommy it stuck out like a sore thumb.

So he’s terrified (not like he’ll ever _admit_ that, of course, he’s got an image to keep up) but as the speck he knows is Techno’s small house appears ahead of him, Tommy’s whole body eases with a release of tension, a breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding.

Some part of him will always recognize this as _home,_ he thinks.

“Tommy,” says Techno, standing on the steps up to his front door. “What’re you doin’ here?”

He doesn’t sound particularly _angry,_ but Tommy freezes in front of the apiary nonetheless. The wind is cold, kicking up a spray of snowflakes from the ground and peppering his cheeks. There’s snow in both his shoes. Tommy can’t feel his toes anymore.

“Hello, Technoblade,” he says, swallowing hard. “I came to return this.”

He hefts the Axe of Peace, polished and carefully repaired. Techno arches a brow. He’s not wearing his mask or even his armor, and something about seeing him standing there, loose and comfortably at ease, makes a lump rise in Tommy’s throat.

When it becomes apparent Tommy isn’t going to move, Techno jumps off the steps and strides across the yard to reach him, and as he reaches a hand for the enchanted weapon, Tommy’s tongue finally obeys him, letting the words spill out.

“I’m going to bring back Wilbur,” he says, nearly tripping over the words. “I think. I think I’m going to.”

Techno freezes, something flashing in his eyes, and Tommy feels a small spark of victory in his chest. Technoblade might claim he cares for no one but Phil and his horse, but Tommy has always been sure he cared about Wilbur as well, if only a little. Why else would he have agreed to brute force his way onto Dream’s server to help them? He might use anarchy as an excuse, but then, why hasn’t he joined _every_ server out there with a government to bring them down? Check and mate, pig boy.

They’re both silent for a long time after that.

Techno drops his hand at some point, and they simply stand there, two former allies, two almost-friends, two not-quite brothers, with just a foot of space but miles stretching out between them and no sure way to bridge the gap.

“Techno?” comes Phil’s voice, and Tommy flinches so hard he nearly drops the axe. “ _Tommy?_ What are you doing here?”

He’s standing in the doorway to the house, cloak billowing in the wind.

Tommy looks at him and thinks he doesn’t look a thing like Wilbur. He’s not sure if that’s a good thing.

“Hello Phil,” he manages. “I want to bring Wilbur back. Wanted to ask what Techno thought.”

It’s Phil’s turn to flinch, hands flexing before falling limply to his sides.

“What do you think, then?” Tommy asks, but he’s not looking at either of them. (He can’t look them in the eye right now, lest they see the way tears that are decidedly not from the icy wind are gathering in his eyes.) His voice rings out across the empty tundra, shaky and snow-muffled.

“There is very little I wouldn’t give to have him back,” Phil answers, voice barely above a whisper.

Techno says nothing, offering only the slightest nod, so small Tommy might have imagined it, before turning and walking back towards the house.

“Techno,” Tommy calls questioningly, holding out the Axe of Peace again, but Techno shakes his head.

“Keep it,” he rumbles. “It’s just an axe. I can make another.”

(But it’s so much _more_ than that, isn’t it?)

Tommy turns and flees, axe cradled in his arms.

It feels a little like progress.

* * *

There are blood vines all over the flag, and Tommy stands at the edge of the crater that remains of his home and grits his teeth.

L’manberg might have been terrible, towards the end, but it was still — God, it was still a _special place._ It still provided safety and shelter and community for them all. It had been Wilbur’s great and glorious and hideous creation, something Tommy has given up _everything_ for, time after time, and now the damn Egg has the audacity to desecrate its fucking _grave?_

Tommy has a lot of feelings about L’manberg, most of which he doesn’t want to think about, but the least this server can do is leave the memorial be.

He picks his way down into the crater before realizing he’s left all his tools at home.

In the end, Tommy spends hours yanking the vines off the flag with his bare hands, spitting curses at them all the while.

He sets them alight and watches the smoke rise once again from L’manberg’s corpse. It feels appropriate. He goes home feeling a little lighter.

* * *

No one bothered to ask Fundy how he might feel about getting his father back the _last_ time they attempted a resurrection, and Tommy is determined to be better than that. He might not be Fundy’s blood family, not like Phil, but since when has blood done a single thing except be _spilled,_ anyway?

There’s a saying, about blood and covenants and the strength of the family you _choose._

This is Tommy, choosing.

“Would you want Wilbur back,” Tommy asks Fundy, swinging his legs over the edge of the Prime path, “if you got the chance?”

Fundy looks down at his hands, picking at his claws. Tommy wonders if Fundy ever imagines all the blood his hands have spilled when he sees them. He knows he does when he sees his own knuckles and palms and fingers, each traitorous joint crisscrossed with scar tissue.

“I think it depends,” Fundy says softly.

“On what?”

“On whether or not he would actually go through with all the things he was saying, about being better. About _changing._ ”

(Tommy isn’t sure if people ever truly _change,_ but he wants to believe it. He knows how it feels to have your chances taken away, so he will offer them time and again if that’s what it takes.)

“I miss him,” Fundy whispers, and Tommy doesn’t have anything to say to that, can’t do anything but close his eyes and nod.

“I want to give him another chance, I think,” Tommy admits, picking at a hole in the knee of his jeans. Fundy flicks an ear.

“I think I do, too,” he replies. “He’s family, after all.”

“Family,” says Tommy, “doesn’t always mean you have to forgive.”

“No. No, it doesn’t.”

They’re both silent for a time after that, and when Tommy rises to leave, Fundy catches his wrist for a moment.

“Tommy,” he says, gazing up at him. “For what it’s worth? You’re family, too.”

If they both cry as they part ways, neither of them mention it.

* * *

(Tommy finds him in Pogtopia, afterwards, sitting on one of the walkways with his feet dangling into empty space, knocking at one of the lantern chains, the squeaking and jangling echoing softly into the seemingly endless darkness. In his hands is one of the buttons from the wall, turned over and over and over again, and the sight of it sends a nervous jitter over Tommy’s skin.

He’s only been back to Pogtopia once, vindictively destroying the pistons in that tiny room that stank of redstone and fear, breathing easier with Tubbo at his side. He can still see their footprints in the dust, a bit blurred now.

Pogtopia is a moldering ruin, a forgotten city in the darkness of a ravine that used to shelter a brewing rebellion, a plotting anarchist, a spiraling madman. It has laid quietly in a dying slumber for months now, undisturbed and largely forgotten. Too many memories linger in the rock walls, the twisting passageways and spiraling staircases.

To see Wilbur here is almost appropriate, like he’s just another one of the memories, just another shade of the past, sitting in the dark and damp and dust, waiting to be remembered.

Tommy knows Wilbur knows he’s here. You can hear everything in Pogtopia, and that includes Tommy’s own footsteps as he clambered down the stairs from the aboveground entrance. He sticks his hands in his pockets and waits.

Finally, Wilbur looks up at him, eyes gleaming with something that looks suspiciously like tears behind his glasses. One of the lenses is cracked, Tommy notes idly. He remembers the day that happened, when they slipped off Wilbur’s face and tumbled down the stairs to the path below. Tommy had teased him about it for days.

That was back before things got…bad.

“Hi, Tommy,” Wilbur says. His echo takes a moment to fade, and Tommy is reminded of Ghostbur’s hollow tones. “Why are you here?”

“Why are _you_ here?” Tommy asks stubbornly.

Wilbur shrugs, twirling the button between his fingers like a magic trick. He used to make cards disappear, sometimes, Tommy remembers. There are a lot of things about Wilbur he’s forgotten, he’s found. Little things, trifling details that get overwhelmed by the bad memories, and even the good ones.

He misses the little things.

“I thought you might need some space,” Wilbur mumbles. “Some time away from me.”

Tommy’s had nearly four months without Wilbur. He thinks that’s enough for now.

“It’s cold as shit in here, Wilbur,” he says, trying to channel his annoying sibling voice, but it just comes out mildly concerned, bordering on nagging. “You’re gonna catch your fuckin’ death.”

He realizes what he’s said immediately after the words leave his mouth, and Wilbur snorts.

“Already done that, I’m afraid.”

Tommy kicks at his arm. “Fuck you.”

“Fuck _you._ ”

“Bitchboy.”

“Child.”

“ _Wilbur._ ”

“Tommy.”

They fall silent, insults sliding into a familiar softness Tommy hasn’t heard in oh so long.

“Come on,” Tommy says at last. “Come see my hotel. The van’s long gone, ‘coz Techno fuckin’ blew it up and shit, but you can stay in one of the hotel rooms. If you want.”

Wilbur clambers to his feet, tossing the button down, down, down into the darkness below. Over the faint clatter of it hitting the ground, he asks, “How much is it gonna cost me?”

Tommy smirks. “More than you could afford, bitch. But I’m, I’m fuckin’ charitable, you know, so you can stay for free.”

“Truly, my gratitude for your generosity is overwhelming,” Wilbur deadpans, but there’s something like relief in his eyes. Something like a silent _thank you._

Tommy links their arms and drags Wilbur up out of the darkness and dust and abandoned hope, up into a new beginning.)

* * *

The last person he asks is Tubbo.

He doesn’t mean to come to him last, but every time he tries to open his mouth to say something, he remembers asking _did we do the right thing?_ as they sat on the bench with “Mellohi” playing and the Wilbur’s presence wrapped around Tommy’s shoulders like a cloak, remembers Tubbo’s frantic shake of the head.

But it finally comes to a head when he doesn’t have much of a choice anymore, because Tommy needs to ask Foolish for help, and the best place he knows to find Foolish is Snowchester, and Tubbo is there as well so he might as well bite the fuckin’ bullet already and kill two birds with one stone.

“Tubbo,” Tommy asks, unable to look at his best friend. “Tubbo, what if I brought Wilbur back?”

It’s not as earth-shattering as he thinks it will be, in the end.

Tubbo simply stops whatever mechanical tinkering he’s been doing and stares down at the pieces of iron in his hands, the redstone dust under his fingernails.

“I don’t know what you want me to say, Tommy,” he says, peeking out from under his unkempt fringe. “He was never my brother.”

(Sometimes, Tommy wonders if the same is true for him. If Wilbur really cared, cared the way Tommy did. Saw him like the brother Tommy considered Wilbur to be.)

“Please,” Tommy says. “I don’t know what to do.”

“I don’t know,” Tubbo repeats. “I can’t tell you what to do. You’re your own man, Tommy. It’s your choice.”

Somehow, this ends up being the fulcrum on which everything shifts.

* * *

_What do you want?_ Puffy asks.

 _Do whatever your heart says you should do,_ Wilbur once said.

 _It’s your choice,_ Tubbo tells him.

Here is the thing about Wilbur Soot: Tommy sees him everywhere, from the ruins of L’manberg to the blackstone in his home to the dandelions that grow atop his dirt roof. He sees him in potions on crackling brewing stands, in the color yellow, in crossbows and gunpowder, in music and the scent of lavender and burning soul sand.

Wilbur is everywhere, spread like stardust among a million tiny, insignificant things, and Tommy doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to stop seeing the fingerprints and bruises Wilbur Soot left on the world, on Tommy himself.

He thinks, just a little, he might be okay with that.

Here is the thing about Wilbur Soot, though: Tommy will never stop turning to his left, opening his mouth to say something to a man who isn’t there anymore. Tommy _misses_ him, and he thinks some part of him might _need_ Wilbur, twisted as that seems.

There were far too many things left unsaid between them.

Wilbur never apologized for what he did.

Tommy never got a chance to be _mad._

He wants a chance to say all the things he never got to. (Maybe he wants a chance to scream at Wilbur and have him _remember._ )

Tommy _wants._

He’s beginning to accept that that’s okay.

* * *

Foolish is entirely too tall, and Tommy tells him so. The demigod laughs, flashing a mouth full of jagged teeth, and Tommy swallows hard and tells himself he is _not_ afraid, not one bit. He’s a big man, and everything is fine.

“Foolish,” he says, “I have something to ask you.”

And he talks, for a good long while, longer than he ought to, really, but he’s afraid to get to the point and afraid of what Foolish is going to say in return, and the whole story and more comes spilling out of his mouth before Tommy knows what he’s doing. Foolish listens patiently, and at the end, he nods, tapping his chin.

“I cannot promise you it will go _right,_ ” Foolish says solemnly, and Tommy thinks of skeletal horses, thinks of the scars that run across Techno’s cheek and forehead and neck, scars that sometimes glow like molten gold and are sometimes black as poison.

“I’m not asking for your word,” Tommy says resolutely.

(No one ever keeps their promises on this server, anyway.)

“I’m just asking for _help._ ”

 _I have to try,_ Tommy does not say, but there is understanding in Foolish’s great glowing green eyes.

* * *

Tommy has agonized for far too long about what he’s going to do when he gets his brother back. A symphony of scenarios has played out in his head, hundreds of different ways everything could go so terribly _wrong_ or so achingly _right,_ and Tommy has never quite decided what he should do. In the end, he can’t help himself. (In the end, his instincts take over.) He sees Wilbur, and after only a split second of hesitation, _hurls_ himself bodily into the older man’s arms.

Wilbur _oofs_ in surprise, stumbling back a half a step, and his hands come up, hovering uncertainly, as though he’s not quite sure if he’s allowed to touch Tommy, or even if he _can._ There are white streaks in his hair, now, and a hollowness to his cheeks, but his eyes are the familiar brown Tommy remembers, and his skin isn’t sallow and ashen grey anymore.

Slowly, ever so slowly, Wilbur wraps an arm around Tommy’s shoulders, places a gentle hand on the back of his head, fingers buried in his hair. His hands are trembling.

Fingers curling into the back of Wilbur’s sweater, Tommy takes a deep, shaky breath. It _feels_ like Wilbur. It smells like him, too, all lavender and guitar glue and cedar and the lingering traces of cigarettes.

“You couldn’t just let me stay dead, huh?” Wilbur murmurs, clearly trying to sound annoyed, but there’s an undeniable fondness suffusing every word. It soothes an ache somewhere deep inside Tommy, an ache he didn’t even notice before.

Tommy squeezes his eyes shut tight, swallows past the impossibly large lump in his throat, a Sisyphean boulder he’s been pushing uphill for far too long. He can’t find the words, so in the end, he just buries his face in Wilbur’s chest and shakes his head, hiccupping as he holds back a sob.

“Oh, Toms,” says Wilbur, and that’s all it takes for Tommy to shatter.

“I _missed_ you,” he breathes, and everything he’s been holding in — all the hurt and trauma of exile, every war and fight and duel and betrayal, every stroke of a sword and sparking fuse of TNT, a home destroyed thrice over and _more_ — comes spilling out. He _sobs_ into his brother’s sweater, trembling as he weeps, and Wilbur — solid, warm, _alive_ Wilbur — wraps him even tighter in his embrace and lets him cry, rocks him back and forth as he falls apart.

Wilbur smiles crookedly, though Tommy can’t see it from his vantage point, head tucked beneath Wilbur’s chin.

“I missed you, too, you impossible child,” he whispers. “I missed you too.”

* * *

(Later, there will be time for arguments and shouts and the agony of old wounds unbound and set to light. There will be apologies that can never cover the enormity of the pain caused, and there will be struggles.

But there will also be those thousands of small, everyday things, those beautiful, incredible _mediocre_ things, the glorious stuff of life that will remind them why everything is worth it. What is life if not a collection of moments, those thousand seconds in which you keep breathing? Raindrops and holding air in your lungs and the spaces between the stars.

Later, Wilbur asks, _why did you do it? Why did you bring me back?_

Tommy elbows him, but his face is solemn. _I decided to follow your advice._

 _My advice?_ Wilbur asks, brow arched.

Tommy smiles. _I did what my heart told me to do._

To Wilbur, it sounds like _because I love you._ )

**Author's Note:**

> Find my perpetually angsty ass on [tumblr](https://zannolin.tumblr.com/), [twitter](https://twitter.com/zannolin), and various other sites (same @)! I'm most active on twitter, currently crying over the block men 24/7. 
> 
> You can also find me streaming art, music, writing, and games on twitch, also @zannolin!


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